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FANDANGO MOVING ON UP! I-net BLOG/ Consider RE-OPEN 12 DAYS OF BLOGGING/ WINTER 2014 |
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Due space ... cyber space, sillies @ a thing they call BLOG BOARD, am considering re-booting FICTION FANDANGO. Also, did find former arena for viewing latest blog creations from community members. Who blog along @ the train we may dub http://www.writing.com. At that spot one may still find latest blogs by date & hour. This random thing that swept the site like a cow catcher, never cut it with moi. Writing seriously comes @ a price. Not costly in the least, instead a crux quite easy on the eye and mentally relaxing fer sure. That's the craft for you --- when folks dedicate their works to a degree of ultimate impression for their audience. 'Random' applied like salvage for lackluster pieces clocks in as unfunny, uncanny sameness, tech gear only, buy-this-buy-that, keep up with the Jonses, be a married couple only, paint the white picket fence of online persona clone-ship is history. It always was for a talented ken of authorship. So, if boredom turns you on, personally can't even grasp the concept. Okay? Previously FANDANGO underwent a major wash & dry, hung out to air since ... summer 2013, when blogs crumbled along with golden rod, last Autumn. A year before --- 2012 @ Teffom Estates came with discoveries which eventually tuned into major news events due revelations from Edward "Scissors hands" Snowden. International press hounded the guy all the way to Moscow. What he revealed to the American Public, due a closed and corporate owned media in the States ... went entirely unrelated to domestic spying. A blight on these shores, to be sure. Suffice, IF TEFF rants, don't think she dislikes EVERYONE. I don't. I do run the EVERYONE contests and oh my --- have nerve to dub myself Prez @
Also, currently searching my own bonafide noggin for a way to kick start another truly laid back group @
Regionally we can only do our best. Of course, thru our writing. Most folks are not active protesters, another thing like even a hint of news (shunned onsite) remains in disfavor nationwide. Oh, yes, my pretties, tis in fact out there like a ground cover of wild geranium. Why, lucky we color ourselves when finding real news, these days. Hoaxes come, entrapment stories build but common sense lives on in a place you may dub: -------- FICTION ------ FANDANGO ------- A ----- WRITER'S ----- BLOGGEROO. HAPPY NEW YEAR. Deadline Jan 30 ... @
Christmas past submissions, encased in the only Christmas Genre Anthology onsite & online open See:
Perplexed while wondering about the CLUBs Silent Ones @
FANDANGO LIVE spells no pressure stats for moi. (I) might blog a bit, but short story time is more important, you see. Plans to make, resolutions to keep and sure ... the beat goes on. Public thanks to all who entered 2013s Everyone Contests which proves most successful. Yipee! Completion toward judging winners cicle while R&R (reading & rev) stories soon. Oh boy! Promoting same, holding in hand like Magi-ware then gifting ala Secret Santa. DONATIONS WILDLY NEEDED FOR CONTESTS. Please E-mail TEFF. Comments open @ FANDANGO. Sept 1/TWENTY-FOURTEEN! Officially open @
Tap the above if you like Ghostbuster mid. Also, accepting submissions all year long, from EVERYONE! MAY RE-OPEN in JAN @ un-revamped {bitem: Recenty Anthology created @
PUBLISHERS, CALL ME! Ditto @
Oh, the giraffe on the cover spells sticking FANDANGOs neck out there into that offsite view world aka an I-net EYE! |
WELCOME TO CEDAR HILL By Mary Moffett teffom@writing.com During hazardous winters, Daddy's acreage lay in repose, snow drifts grew higher as dawn succumbed to dusk. Oh, yes, my father had a farm with cultivated fields, and fallow lands of nearly seventy-two acres worth of delightful streams. Virgin lands, he'd explain to all who'd listen, never built upon. We walked, breathed and scoured hill upon hill of standing timber as far as the eye could see. We held firewood parties. Best of all as December's early snowfall blanketed the terrain, we waited patiently for Daddy to announce the foraging forth for our annual Christmas tree hunt. Mother bundled us in winter attire so tight we flitted about sideways, sliding in snow gear so cumbersome, to this day it amazes me we could walk. My brother always pulled his sled, as we steadfastly stepped inside Daddy's wide boot prints. Snow was an enemy back then. For we needed to tend livestock, whose water troughs seemed always nastily frozen. Cousins arrive, a bevy of activity with axes and saws lending sheer joy to the outing per se. My father never could cotton to his brother, Francis's idea of a tree. Scoffing at what passed for a tree, we ourselves never could figure out the scant Austrian pines favored by that family. Each year, we'd look right through the wide branches saying later: "It was too open, too thin." "So lopsided," my parents remarked. Our destination we dubbed Cedar Hill. This fairy like wonderland still stands to this day. Although, my cousin Sally built a house there about thirty years ago. Now, tree seekers visit her place every winter. Our family is not the type who call ahead. We recall decades without phones, people lined up in cars in driveways eking hours from gabby good-nights. Sometimes, kids fell asleep in eight cylinder cars built like comfortable limos. Waiting, always waiting for exacting arguments about politics to end. Or words from relatives, who lived far away in an architectural marvel, the City of Brotherly Love, to promise when they'd next return to our place. A woodsy farm, still there, but as silent now as the color of ice. Daddy's middle name should have been Cedar. He loved Cedar trees. I liked the red ones. The burgundy hue of a cedar protecting itself, it's fragrant bark, it's bird life and randy insects all year long is like the Eiffel tower to me. Simply grand. So, we'd cut one per year without a qualm in the world. This thinned the forest for new growth, my Uncle Francis explains to me, one winter after Daddy became a Florida Snowbird. Winters seemed quieter since my parents left at Thanksgiving. With Mother at his side, enjoying tropical warmth, the Sunshine State never failed to offer them nor their series of RV's. Dad always said "he had it made" once he retired. Well, back to the tree brigade observe Dad with a measuring tape, in case it was too tall to fit in the house. When I close my eyes writing this, I still see his denim coat leaving his long-waisted figure as his huge frame seems to reach to the twinkling stars. All of us breathless, pulling cold air into our lungs. Everyone wanted to scream out the first "TIMBER!" Or best rendition thereof at the exact point the tree is felled. Of course, we'd accept nothing less. Heck, we were born with standards. Those standards pretty much included never buying anything if we could build it, make it, grow it, sew it or bake it for the holidays. In a sense these were ongoing, since we prepared all year. Well, low and behold and to this day, I know in my heart, it was his adroit, uncontrollable generosity which got the best of him one year. Dad decides he'll supply a Christmas tree for my small second grade class room. This grandiose gesture shall be a surprise for Sr. Florentine. The entire classroom will be aghast with delight. So, we proceed on a Saturday. Fell the thing, load it into a station wagon, arrive at school about six p.m. Darn, if the nun carefully voices a polite objection to the gift. "Paul, I don't think the children can decorate this tree as it is rather full. But we can stand it in the hallway, right here beside the foyer's double doors." Or words to that effect, which crumble my father's face faster than my brother running outside to wait on the sidewalk. Until we went to school in this small town, we didn't even know what sidewalks were. Please, remember, we traipsed stones and woodland paths. We grew cedars as prickly as porcupines. Granted they require a full set of armor to decorate. Never fear, we managed without a snag in our demeanor nor our daring handknit sweaters. Persnickety silver strands flew from flat cardboard a.k.a. tinsel. What is a Cedar Christmas tree without fake snow from an aerosol container (my mother protects for four years until it finally explodes) light bulbs so heavy branches break or silver tinsel so bright and airy, it's still found in the house mid July? My brother rips off his earmuffs, glares at the poor nun. He helps dad move the tree. We leave. Dad drives us to two green houses. It is so early in December, street vendors aren't even set up in store parking lots with aisles of fencing supporting impromptu pine forests. At the first florist shop, Dad buys Mother a poinsettia. Of which I am must juggle upon my lap. After considering prices apparently, he drives on. Thick glassed greenhouse number two is a corner place. Now we're treated to parking precariously on any icy street, enjoying a block long walk upon .. a fancy sidewalk. We admire Christmas lighting from a few blue places. Along the way, we window shop, a second favorite pastime of my father's. Entering the place is a joyful connection with warmth which oozes into our frozen limbs. A two storey affair, I explore the entire place and still remember long low stone walls, brick flooring. Hanging plants everywhere interspersed with roses, carnations in large glass containers. Then Dad talks the ear of the proprietor. But, yes, we leave finally with a tree. A pine! I am annoyed, flabbergasted in fact. My brother beams all smiles. He's the type who hates embarrassment. As country folk we know we're different. I'm proud of it, Dennis isn't but to this day he fells an annual cedar on Cedar Hill. Now, the nun is in complete shock. She tires to give my father $5.00 for the tree. The entire night has gone to hell. For now my father is ashamed she thinks he is poor. We end up eating finger sandwiches in an adjacent convent which smells like a disinfected hospital ward. Four more nuns continue to express their gratitude for the tree as we're given cookies with tea on fancy saucers. I can still see my marvelous Daddy, mine, holding his saucer on his knee, delicately fingering a tiny cup. The scene, us cozened with friendly respectable Sisters beside their artificial pink fuzzy, plastic tree causes my brother a fit of giggles. Laughter's contagious so we take off, slide on waxed hallways inside an empty school. Later, he tells me, that pink tree reminds him of poodle skirts worn by teenage girls. The Sister's black habits of leather jackets. Of note, at home Mother plies us with hot chocolates but we're so stirred up and rambunctious, our tums growl no thanks --- we're full. You see, Mother always set a fine table, Dad always used a saucer with his tea cup, kept his farm fowl, family and animals fed, tended his hearth with cedar logs for special aromatic effect on nights it suited him. Me? I'm off to embrace a snowy Cedar Hill. Then, calling in on Sally this afternoon where I'll read this story aloud. Out in the woods, clipping a few cedar branches in fond vivid memory of my father, Paul. He gave us what the world can not: namely: a love for nature which in our large family tree shall steadfastly endure. |
"Dec 3"  "December 4" "December 5" "December 5" December 5 12-05-09 @ 8:09 am EST by: Paula LaRue (81) "SCROOGENOMICS making "cents" of holiday shopping points toward gift recipients being disappointed. Why? Well, opening this tiny gem, a book which fits in the palm, portrays wasteful impulse buying. Why, asks J Waldfogel, an economist published by Princeton U ... because consumers rush to fulfill a gift list ... which SCROOGENOMICS outlines as contributing to wasteful spending. In short, store goers are critiqued for shopping at the last minute, buying things folks don't really like or need all in the traditional surround of Christmas gifting. Waldfogel deepens a craven spending abyss by rating these billion dollar Christmas sales boosts to corporations' (whom both produce or sell) sales pitches. Blame falls on this seasonal tradition of all out giving. Thus, a guilty conscience if Aunty Melinda from Toronto did not receive her standard box of scented soaps again this year. Did I like this book? Not really. Did Tante Melinda like the soap? No, she's allergic to cheap perfume. Did I read the entire book? No. Couldn't hack it since I never buy presents in quantity at this time of the year. Nor anticipate purchase for Dec 25. However, I buy about six in three years, maybe. Plus, (I) already do what the author advices ... gift appropriately all year long. Which is a big difference as opposed to placing presents wrapped in Sunday comics under the tree for my kids ... Eh shucks, they grew up. You see? "Used to be folks made things, we didn't buy gifts. WE MADE THEM!" is how a customer explained her take on holiday gifting one Mother's Day. In 2008, we were selling flowers in a tent and we heard it all. People felt an overpowering need to spend, spend, spend for those on their list. Or so it seemed. We didn't care, we were moving flowers. Our job at the time. Also, step inside a Big Top and you just start talking for some ungodly reason. Opinions on holiday purchasing is not new wave thinking. Back in the Seventies, the plan became to stick it to the man, meaning the establishment. Prices were aiming high, higher. Hell, yeah we took up knitting, sewing, baking, gardening. If our men folk couldn't re-build it, they built it from the ground up. There was always a guy who'd change your oil in his back yard, replace a windshield or scrape a head gasket. Yes, as consumers we were fearless. Overall we kept prices down for nearly twenty odd years. So, do we end it or should there be less emphasis on buying gifts at this particular time of the year? Spreading it out to include eleven other months is of course, a budget call. When you think about it, a poem is a gift. A drawing, a painting, a story. Fancy it up a bit, take such things into an off line, material version and the personally crafted gift idea escalates from an artistic venue. Well, one week after spot reading five chapters of "Scroogenomics" the tie to an over materialistic aspect for gungho purchasing and gifting still floats in this post on DECEMBER 5, 2009. Maybe 'tis ... consumer beware. Ta Ta --- MERRY MERRY! * cents --- playful for sense. But, of course, dear readers, you already caught this. |
| THE CHRISTMAS BATTERY.. Sure life throws things at you and at your car too, of course from time immortal. Used to be, after five or six jump starts from a few kind folks, who truly understand Christmas Spirit ... you'd drive the beast into a Wally World. Then wait about an hour and a half, promptly pay out the King's ransom for a new battery. Which, they install at their leisure. While you become acquainted with all the other happy holiday shoppers. Then ensues automobile or truck conversations re: anti-freeze, snow tires & stick shift benefits as opposed to mundane automatic tranny fluid prices. Not this time. Not even the Triple A fellow can start this cranky little gem. Now DEC 4, making cheese & ham omelets for an affable volunteer crew standing & crawling around in the driveway. Looking askance at the neighbors as their finely tuned engines depart the scene faster than diddly squat. So, fingers crossed, hope we are up and running once more. At least before Christmas Eve would be nice. Holy Babe in a manger, let's hope. |
Company still here and we're enjoying a full day of fun fun fun ... By SUNDAY: Things simply unlikable were on my mind when I woke up ... such as squeeze *** everything out of an item ... then thinking of lyrics floating past a tall window showing frost on the neighbor's truck wind shield, revealing cold frosty wisps of weeds & leaves spread all over sloping lawns. A window to the world, not like bars on Cell Block D, panes of shiny morning glass boasting gleaming frost lines criss-crossing a nearby mountain range, cast totally blue and white. The lyrics were "Mama has a squeeze box; Daddy doesn't sleep at night." ... Then I up-ended the tiger off the bed, stepped over the Doberman on the rug ... perked coffee as strong as any construction worker in these parts. The latter probably out of work ... thoughts flying about ... thinking about the morning blog ... same drill, you know the feeling of where its at. Yes, I read my email from Country Mom ... note her RIP for Kansas Poet, look up his name and can't find his works, recall how we communicated briefly a few times over the years. And also recall he was such a gentleman, an avid poet, a feller who knew his poetry so well. A great person who always said wonderful things for any of my works which crossed his path over the years. And very talented. So glad he knew it, so glad he enjoyed writing so pleasurably. Then too, words can nary express. I wonder if those left behind are okay with all this time we spend on wc. All this time we misplace similar to who really gives a damn what we really say or when. Who cares that what we write is sharable to the degree that these items/ bitems/ poems, few credible essays with citations in essay form as taught in high schools from London to Perth to Los Angles to Madrid to Barcelona to Hoboken to Des Moines. Should we delete everything we know. Do what was suggested to me, commanded when I joined here? Namely? ... don't show off with your writing. Say what ...? Then the searing marks of stupidity gained, lost, returned to a plateau no one really likes very much. The few, the least, the stodgy the earmarked for success? WHO WHO WHO are they really? Take a deep look, deeper. Wounded leave the battleground, others take their place. Plants are planted, names are shifted about, desk tops cleared, refilled with sameness. A freaking grueling sameness ... the stories are adolescent LIT, the poetry is marvelous, the writers real or unreal, pennames jarring with messages today, information gained or eradicated, gone are the truths children seek, here are the retakes, the scene 185 thousand and rising on how to, how to live, how to die, how to lose, how to win, how to polish, how to write a short story when there are no rules for fiction basics? Grammar, syntax --- yes, short story inclusion rules... maybe no no ... NO! Who pushes the inside of the envelope in ewriting, who self publishes, who wins the official contests or dabbles? Then spirals downward to who cares. Who the fuck cares? ... Who actually writes well, better, grandly, who savors all advice from fancy better than thous who are always one cut above the rest, several cuts above the rest ... all the rest since they are told this is so from false stats, from friendly folks who always know best, forever bound to appear nicey-nice for sakes of trite better or worse. Then too the ones who knew you by name years ago, but forget who you are since they changed so much they took over something else and yet they are still here, invisible people without faces, without courtesy, without anything you can really see and put your finger on ... why? Because unreality is king. Online is online ... contributors, support? All these naming word kens we find baptizing what works what doesn't what is not and never has been meant to actually deliver in an ageless barometer or murky line in the proverbial sand of what we may (tend to, can or God Bless! achieve) ignoring every single day. "Writing is competition. A competitive past time which exceeds all that is superficial and beneath any goals of the cut throat craft which places the best authors TTT.*" TEFF" Or not. The standards which judge these things, wow ... what are these? What the fuck are these? Lobotomized versions? Only by some, others naturally know, observe, welcome the differences, bleed continuous changes placed into the world today which passes for genre scripting. Reality, people, reality. One may claim this reality as territoriality, use adverbs, my luvs, blow minds of some, endear others, spurn them onward like me. Spin them until the ones who say they are in the know ... are what they should be ... either in the know or inside their own little loops merely stringing along a playful game. On the game, in the game ... failed. Yes, let us abide failure for failure's sake. In my humble estimation there are very few winners about. The real winners shall be picked up and carried off by print publishers, receive royalties, pass those to their fams, enjoy Christmas dinners. Not behold crap shoot returns to sophistications which use, harbor and contain much prejudicial remarks for the masses. People! We won Civil Liberties ... we are not alone, we are not worshiped nor must we worship a fucking gawl damn thing. Anger is ours by birth intended, a right. We write murder mysteries, romances, journalistic accurate news worthy slices of life ala TODAY!! (With umpteen quotes.) Yet, we'll read about Iddy biddy bunny cumLaude who feels fantastical appreciation for ? For what? For what? Their first book signing? The first ten lines of a twelve line poem? So, yeah ... one might ask: not another rant blog? Oh, come on, people who missed Junebugs what do you want me to say? Should all agreement be with WHO WHO WHOEVER wakes up in the morning, places tighter clothes on their characters, kills off a name in five hundred words or less during a flash Pulitzer. I missed the point? No, baby, unfortunately for the likes of TEFF who read psychology of sales pitchmanship ... I met the point head on years ago and ran for cover faster than a republican tearing off a bush bumper sticker in a dark deserted part of any foreclosed section of perhaps your home state ... OF: re: reality. Jesus Christ? It must be out there? Out there? Hell, I'm out there. What I do know is this ... hell, dearhearts, mon amis, amigos ... I am not alone by a long shot. Dishonesty in rev advice gifting, dishonesty in what makes a good read, or in what passes for rates or rated case stats is for each his or her own to delve into and decipher. No surprise there. This we know there is not a single entity known to mankind on this wonderful planet Earth of ours, where we live and breathe which defines passable, acceptable or rejected rules for the sake of sameness. Sameness be damned, let us bow our heads. Conformity is legion. The fault line of this earthquake best avoided is a daring absence of credentials by the credentialed, dubbed echelon, emerita and stodgy particulars, by moi in JUNEBUGS & ELDERBERRY WINE. In short WHO WHO WHO are YOU!!! Now, of Kansas Poet, Lar would never tell the likes of TEFF to ever shut up. That's what was rather cool about him. He portrayed an uncanny ability to both go with the flow while approaching person to person. Fake folks can never do this. They can fake a try. Words will be brief, contain tons of first person pronoun I I I I. However, with variable success for gullible entities. But others can spot well-meaning charades. AND sure that is why back to the quote --- "WRITING IS COMPETITION." Yeah, also keeping steady on irking out a sarcastic lush ... hardy har har ... join FANDANGO wit search if so inclined. JESUS!!! In a world lauding spin, some fools forget how to quote or when to quote and they refuse as most times is the case to quote. Which would even sparingly add a citational credit to another writer, published, non-published, fiction, non fiction. Check Wikipedia for a damn decent explanation, won't y'all. PLEASE!!! OR: Don't bother really, stay the way you are. And don't give out the creased brow here. TEFF was doomed from the start here, disliked and in many odd lots well ... over feedbacked.**** There are types of personalities which pride themselves on correctness, correctness and dish out odd bits of random idiocy in my direction. Although, no names, come to mind, of course not, sillies. It would never make good business sense, recall the spelling hint --- look for us in business --- to operate without staff, now could it? So, selling Junebugs, may settle soon. And yeah, there's a quasi offer on the table. My work, my blog, my Lamborghinis ... my copyrights. Can we hear a congrats, La Rue for that 2005-2009 book? Jesus, don't hold your breath. What one or you/ second person plural doesn't know, won't hurt them. Of course not. What they/ we might understand as logical but overlook anyway for mental ease ... just might harm their/ our/ any gifted talented side. So, once more Author beware. Disclaimer: This blog is not meant to specifically beleaguer nor demean any persons whatsoever. Real live wire folks, just might understand. Especially when they ride into the sunset on their favorite high horses. Fare them so very very well. <> <> <> <> <> <> FIVE STARS TO ALL with best wishes ... Look, gang of blogger readers, thanks for stopping over. * TTT === To the top, coined by Church Muse a Callifornia author who also coined ... "The man in Al Gores' White House." Spell check complete, hope it don't change none. **** Coining feedbacked. LASTLY, oh thank GOD!! PTL!!! Incorrect is not nor shall ever reign supreme. Incorrect is false. Making incorrect sound correct .. is bogus foul play anyday of the year. Too say incorrect things, add more like by saying these sentences are opinions, then by IIIIIII's odd brief speak (no citations as back up) re: writing is stingy. And that's all I know. And here's the final note. Promises, promises, right? Think of a character, a witch, a gypsie whatever who never shuts up. She'll mouth you against a wall until she's convinced you of what you already know ... and if you laugh ... she still won't shut up ... She knows you know she can't shut up. Plus, she loves making people laugh, smile and squirm. Guess what, kids? ... Yeah, this is normalcy. Normalcy is also reading along, noticing trite changes in what a person is finding to use in a ... e.g. nl. Copywriting? Genre specifics, etc in an educational base can be spotted. This is why English teachers ask for citations. This is allowed of course. Don't think it isn't. However, when one goes so swiftly into it, and then claims adeptness at any of the things one does not use ... sure .. you may ask ... Do they too drive a fleet of Lamborghinis? Honey, I think not. Email for Junebugs pass key at thy earliest convenience. Thanks. Arrivederci!! |
Busy changing all of my portfolio to email comments only ... well we know why ... |
Say life deals someone (anyone) a blow, generally this is beyond the control of ordinary sources, absent from all other regular daily blame games. Referring here to illness, death, an accident via car whatever. Other incidents re: bad luck are caused by credible sources. These are human, not PC's nor robotic. During late summer & early autumn of 2008 the last, formerly seated president gurj bu (recall this author won't say his crumby name but y'all call him GWB) convinced the American Public as he tauted flow of misinformation and outright lies once more ... that the major banking firms & Wall Street markets were about to fold. About to cause a domino effect worldwide. Somehow the worldwide part crashed anyway. Here in the states two presidential contenders fearing for their safety nets re: the upcoming election of Nov 2008, and their chances to win the presidential term for 2009 to 2012 stood before cameras, Congress and their voting backers to force feed the bailout package aka TARP to the American Public as if it were a good thing. It wasn't. The banks weren't in dior straights, they just said they were. So away from the US Treasury slipped billions ... BILLIONS!!! B-I-L-L-I-O-N-S of tax dollars accumulated there for a very long time, not just in the taxable year of 2007. Who won? The banks won, Wall Street crashed it's infamous market which by today's date of Nov 20, 2009 has pretty much recovered. In the meantime fearing for the worst, while stocks went from say approx (e.g.) for Electric Companies from approx $40 per share to $3.00 these may be fully back to the $40 mark per share. So those who did not sell their portfolios, opting to stay the course may also now be back to portfolio sniffing as per usual. Few if any regulations, as were seen in the anti trust era of FDR, have been imposed, nor proposed for money marketing, hedge funds, etc on these banking conglomerates of whom it was said were: "too big to fail." So there's the short version. Too big to fail? Why were they not placed into foreclosure like the small guy? What they had no assets to sell? They had no interest in doing zip for the average guy ... other than steal what did not belong to them namely the fingers in the pie of OUR US Treasury. Paulson, head of the Treasury Department had to have known the ruse about to be delivered back in the Fall of 2008. Then rewritten and added to or subtracted from in January of 2009. Yes, under the current administration whom decides to speak once more for the auto industry. An auto industry which could have been selling battery powered electric cars for an affordable price for perhaps a decade. Instead this industry took over wide swaths of city streets in Detroit and inserted huge plazas frequented by themselves and unaffordable by the average taxpayer. So justice you may ask. I fear in this country we no longer have any. No one has been brought to task, charged with manipulation of the Federal Reserve nor any pre-plotted estimates of placing into the open exchange houses which aren't even on the market. Although foreclosed, quickly denuded of tapped, failed residents. You might see them. They are simply empty, bear no for-sale signs. Inside the TARP bailout is a place for these average Joe citizens, whom are not really average at all. Good luck finding that fountain, as it too has been picked as dry as our Western Baha. In fact (we, we, we or) they the disenfranchised to some, are upstanding citizens whom their/OUR congressmen and House representatives duped into foreclosure at both the federal/ Congressional level and the state level. These numerous, unlucky citizens of all ages --- Whom by the way ... paid their property taxes to their local area property taxes within school districts, then paid their school taxes, paid their per capita tax, paid their income tax, paid their state tax. For what? So they could be spit out of their homes like chaff leaving a wheat mill? What happened to them, where do they live now and who are the mortgage crunch displaced? We do know there's a growing line up to undertake the proper channels to receive and apply for passports now-a-days. We do know men & women are enlisting since there are few jobs or no jobs available to them. We do know that there is a firm estimate of 49 million ... that's FORTY-NINE M-I-L-L-I-O-N hungry folks tallied via a NOV 2009 poll for the year 2008 which includes 17 million children. I wonder how many can tweet, how many keep the cell phone industry afloat and how many have cable TV. Do they charge clothing for THEIR/ OUR growing kids on charge cards? Do they apply for and hopefully receive food stamps? Are they entitled to any emergency aide whatsoever? Can they ever find a way to gain Congressional ears on the plight of MILLIONS? The networks won't say. They are going to continue to play the all is hunky-dory card. In the morning, nicey nice shows, ala Thanksgiving week may feature a few folks wearing the uniforms of the US Armed Service ... calling from Iraq or Afghanistan to loved ones here in the states. Or: Thanksgiving will be a scrumptious treat of what to cook & bake for those who continue to tune in so they can at least view the food they can't afford to buy. Worse, some ladies and gentlemen shall go to sleep tonight wishing they still had a stove, a kitchen, a fridge and sunofabitch people a just government which could have at least, at the very least did what it set out to do ... allow them to stay inside their/ our homes, cook their Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners since the TARP bailout said this was a sure thing. Kids, it wasn't. It aint happening. Instead, what is happening is real estate speculators are buying up everything they can get their filthy hands upon. No, you won't see a for-sale sign on a closed, deserted house. You will see the grass wasn't trimmed to perfection by a gasoline powered lawn mower. So you can assume on a drive by visual ... these places might now be owned by another entrant into the worst financial scam perpetrated upon the American people, in our lifetimes. Yes, the land, property, real estate wildcats shall bide their time on these defunct, empty homes whether they be inside the urban sprawl developments outside your town or not. You know the ones, developments which shrugged a devil may not care shoulder at small town American, cut Main Street business in half, and added numerous entrants to the over-taxable school bases in your city or state. First to go were the small, ME: unimportant guys & gals, patsies really to the Banker or Wall street tycoons ... those individuals who were living inside their own homes, paying their mortgages, going to work to sometimes two jobs. Yeah, they fed their kids from supermarkets which raised prices of food almost by a tripling mark for a can of vegetables which sold for $.25 cents, now nearly cost $1.25. So what do we do about it? Bitch about turn coat democrats who do zilch for their constituents? Those damn dems who wish to run for President Obama's seat in the White House in 2012, probably already have a plan .. side with Congressional, war mongering repugs .. now and chance a nomination in 2012. Side with networks no one believes, watches or plainly despises? Well, then too, we've Ralph Nader to consider. He ran for president in 2004, 2008. No major party affiliation? Sorry, yes, he's of and about the Independent Party. You can look him up. Oh, thass okay, maybe your hands are tied, you're rather busy reviewing today, tomorrow and next month. Don't shoot the messenger ... but if I was you WHO WHO WHOM and WHOEVER ... I strongly suggest and concur using that research mode online. Then if all goes well, as you become enhanced and incensed by gainful outlets ... and at least, at least in the very least in the final analysis ... do yourself and your relatives a favor ... please become informed. My next suggestion to all who come across this explanatory rant ... a blog, a note to the wise or unwise ... please make sure you donate to your local churches who offer food kitchens. Perhaps, to thy fellow man, woman, kids ... give a little something this Year of the financial, jobless, mortgage fiasco crisis invading this country state by state, town to town, county by county, city to city faster than a locomotive (And yes, both the major banking conglomerates, Wall Stree financiers, as well CONGRESS knew in 2008 & early 2009 ... all these psychologically calculated results of the TARP handout to the rich --- Meanwhile box up some stuff. Visit any community food banks, shelters, clothing drives and all we must do is be what we must be and sure ... its again on us, our inherited charity whims to help our neighbors as we place the giving into Thanksgiving again this year. You do whatever you like. Read whatever you want to read. Write whatever you want to write. Meantime look around yourself. Look sceptically at and not guilibley askance at this terrible so called bailout of wealthy corporate/ bank fraud America. Look into the neighbor's yard. Jesus, where is he? Where's his lovely wife? Holy Christ, what did they do with the dawgs? So, since the November morn at my place, after last night's rainy seasonal addition to PA's Year of the Rain beckons, I'm on the way out the door for a morning walk. I stop at the neighbor's back gate. Open the gate, slip inside, a daring trespasser upon the undisclosed bank's property. I enter his garden walk, kneel beside his budding, frost surviving chrysanthemums. I weed these for a few hours. My hands are muddied, but I feel his wife, Lauren would like this. I snip off a few buds, smell the tart aroma of a very fine golden mum. Now what? I am totally unprepared for the stinky boa snake which slides into the sunshine from underneath my ex-neighbor's porch. One thing, I hate worse than lying bankers is long scary snakes. So I run home, return with an ax, used for chopping kindling for fires I periodically set anew beneath my outdoor cauldron, a caste iron affair circa 1776. Don't ask ... yeah sure a relic from an ancestor. Pound, pound, chop, chop, pound, smack, spurt, spurt, smack. The sound of visiting New Jersey gulls never once diminishes my lonely screams. Then the latest blazing cauldron fire, fresh snake meat rolled into flour, a tinfoil wrapped grill with onions, cabbage, peppers, parsley supporting snaky tidbits. Mmmm, life has its ups and downs, I tell myself with each morsel of TO-DAY's garlic/ paprika spicy delicacy, I pretend is instead a grilled banker type. Those lowlifes are much shorter than this snake in the grass, I laughed during the slaying. And my memory remains bloodied by a so-called bailout, a handout, a ruse, a theft in broad daylight, operated and carried out by so many in a newly ordained, completely unjust land. Which to my knowledge, I love so well for it's geographically honorable beauty. Wild garlic from the neighbor's overgrown lawn add flare to the flamboyant moment, cauldron side. And no, I don't think this blog is being read, or it is and the count isn't taken. So sorry off to find another empty yard, to weed more fertile gardens and fuel the fire before I visit the community food bank with fresh homegrown veggies, former residents abandoned before they moved to Canada. |
So, onward Christian Soldiers ... Dunt Duh Daw! Imagine if you will a world far away while the paradise of a healthful scrumptious FLORIDA winter comes to mind for the upcoming months of DEC, JAN & FEB 2009-2010 respectfully. Oh, dreams of lucky snowbirds bereft of snow. Hee, hee. "Invalid Item" won third place in October & second place in Sept 2009 from:** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Highly suggest for fairness & fun, this audience please check Where Joy   runs the show @
SUNDAY: NOV 15, 2009 ... While respectfully grumbling at the mouth arrives TEFF currently using my 2003 pen of April Sunday  So what I've a few wrinkles, I still use olive oil on my face and in almost everything I cook, bake, stir and brew into a handy dandy "plethora" aka my PORTFOLIO. One of my crappy ala fatefully wrong reviews, written perhaps by an alien from outerspace ... was sent private, came with a 3.5  Containing, of course, the ever popular, between the lines of don't take a hissy fit (my term for my mother's Philly Conniption Fit.Sure the 3.5 was for MOSS MAN, a short story which deduces that the movie The Mothman Prophecies was a hoax. And is aimed at a WV audience where humour in Tall Tale genre escapes approx six other wc revvers since Feb of 2007. See, told you last week on FICTION FANDANGO, authors often possess total recall. That TRITE 2009 crappy rev's fault lines? Not enough hyphens. While one (only one) onsite nl that month instructed all of us unable to write site NL, out here in wc membership land ... the instructed nl readers aka recipients. Yon wc members who received that un-archived WDC NL ... on .... hold your breath a minute, close your eyes, be ready to scream on a Sunday morning when all your neighbors are sleeping late in your home town, your city avenues & streets, inside huge suburban palaces, cabins, tents, RV's along your country dirt roads or country tarred and marked route numbers. Be ready to shake all over from head to toe ... because even the likes of your desk reference hard cover: HARBRACE & HARCOURT does include hyphenation instruction. And do know this. I find real live members on wc. People who are in my CLUB, people who are gifted authors, and sure pals & campfire collaborators, submitters to my contests etc. BUT, YES REAL!!! Not yes men towing a dead end writing advice party line .. OOPs, LaRue feels reviewing needs improvement. ADC "Invalid Item" courts --- Instead huggers for true grit reality, breathing, folks ..TO-DAY!!! as the word "get" overtakes the entire world of Literature ... my poor traditional length short story, which takes more than two simple minutes to read, of course, and is designed for mature readers from all across the USA, particularly in Virginia which is in the story, along with an audience aim of the UK where the Mothman Prophecies was written back in the Seventies by Keel, a known UF-ologists ... that teffom@writing.com's MOSS MAN, a short story featuring a true setting for the third most combustible polluted area inside the US border ... which is in the biblio included for this short story, otherwise a work of fiction mentioning "Virginia Vampires" this myopic 3.5* rate notes my story does not give good hyphen. Cheap shot without a quaisi doubt. So Open for a spate: AS is --- and I do intend to lengthen the piece which met with a head on collision at the time of conception, aka a stifling 3,000 word count.
RE: hyphen usage: It is not a grammar, punctuation rule that all hyphen use replace the series comma. Nada, nope, bogus, wrong!!! At the time ... Yeah, fearing a gang up for a short story featured by another NL site genre scripter in a recent NL at that time, I later closed the story after a few months. So, I'm the one who receives the email that states the story shall be featured, just like "Invalid Item" was chosen to be featured in a CONTEST NL from yet another gracious, specific NL author. So who cares really about crappy revs overall? Overall* a term used by Teff in her first revs sent oh way back in 2004. Overall, aka much seen rev term. Me: A summary of the rev --- not a summary for the story.So who cares really about erroneous that one misguided hyphen hell rev dropped on Ms Teffy's head from the burst hot air balloonist in the sky ... that day? Hell, I did all day. I did check a dictionary to see if "Pinocchio-type-nose" is hyphenated and it is not there, of course not. Correct me, if I'm wrong but using the word type spells no need for hyphen for me. I hate hyphens between words as long as one's arm. They hold me up and I like to read quickly and efficiently ... in the case of MOSS MAN seeing him with a mountainous, Ohio River backdrop in Point Pleasant, WV. Fortunately for me my 3,000+ short story is read by a person who went to college in Morganton who notes the setting reminds her of WV. Thus mission accomplished. PLUS ---> 5 So you find the good and the bad and the ugly over picky. One revver never finished the story and well ... couldn't understand the beginning as opposed to where the story is leading. Paula and I (Paula Teff's confidant, alter egotistical witch of an author-do-gooder --- we? don't generally need this to enjoy a good story. See? I want to be moving along with the writer so to pause & stand temporarily intrigued. But others who prefer the shorts like 55 word writing exercises, 100 worders (also writing exercises) and flash compositions need the entire story on the head of a penny. This is a travesty. Now one day WHILE realization kicks in lighting flashes from a spent lightbulb, my friends ... realize that ... my impeccable reading skills as I envision a visual to match what an author is telling me from hook sentence to conclusion ... discovers ... "drop-dead-good-looking." Total recall comes into play by a fellow fan of popular, current library finds as we discuss the term. Yes, we laugh, play it out further as readers not writers. And it is fun to be in a discussion with a reader who like myself escapes household chores, child rearing and the freaking laundry baskets ala visiting by car libraries, used book sales, bookstores & relatives for great reading pleasure. To this day always looking for a great book, especially seeking page turners. TO-DAY!!! Not only do share --- still asking myself why that 3.5 was such a restraint from that revver sender, a slight, a stingy showing from a fellow wc member while the story was being featured at the same time ??? ???? Yeah I knew immediately, I was the chosen one alright. NOH!! I didn't just take another hit to the chin, did I? Yes, maybe I did. Therefore, let us do this as the ones who write the stories, post OUR bitems, groups, poetry & forums & blogs --- etc. Let us contemplate facts. Pure facts. Whenever an item/bitem is made public it may choose --- comments only, no rates etc. It can be closed to private only if one likes to store these things. Perhaps email elsewhere or open seasonally. Our stuff as we all well know becomes targets for the fussy ones, those thoroughly over picky who rate on a sentence or phrase or lie about confusion while too damn lazy to read the entire thing. I used to turn purple, blow off steam in the early days here 2004-6 at my own table. Then in 2008 people looked away so much I hardly ever find reviews in my email. I aint writing for facebook, inkspot or tweeter. But anything open from this desk, posted open to the I-net is viewable by those who are dubbed friends of wc. One friend of wc, a member did me grave injustice when rating a phrase from a longer write they also said they liked. So another call is that wc revvers who operate in similar fashion compare their superiority personality wise or education wise or their portfolio stuff as better than the one under the microscope (e.g. MOSS MANN) ... maybe yes, maybe no? OR from any in-print anthology they can point to a better short story. Yet, they won't quote the title of that gem (if any.) All they must do is figure one exists. So we're all 3 star amateurs. Thus fit the logic into the keyhole for that acceptable rev phobia which can drive authors wild. Or not. Up to the best authors here to overlook petty at this point and guess what? WE DO, we try and we manage. No, I am not a famous author, no I am not published in print right now, but my journalism and journalism source work stands the test of time. And no, I am seldom reviewed for things that are open. And the beauty of all this is I purely --P-U-R-E-L-Y don't give a fucking damn. I took enough, shed enough, can talk about the worst from time to time. Needless, when I read the ones who mail the 3 stars, shock sets in like an earthquake along the Jersey Shore. Conclusion each and every one of those folks pens inferior, poorly written works. So glad they reached out. Yet, they be lauded for their REVIEWING TIME. But ... here's the clincher ... oh no no no ... not by me. Sorry? No apologies. I'm sorry they read the pieces they flamed. My word to you, should you encounter like happenstance inside or outside a rev or fall prey to this adroit selfishness (even when they say the piece is good, enjoyable, well written etc) ... YOU --- on occasion may often FIND this anywhere on reviewing.com -- because all peeps may claim their reading pref and they too are individuals with the right to be stodgy, humorless or selfish. CLOSE THE ITEM TO comments only, strike a blow for the ones' above the salt who are the origins of those pieces by title and ownership everyday of the year. OR: be like a duck when water whooshes off back feathers ... whenever you peruse a weird private rev comment which seldom embraces any ken for reading or writing or facts surrounding short stories ... which indeed claim no set rules. Email your problems to em and I'll walk you thru them so they matter as little as mud on a gardener's boots, my dears. Or simply be forevermore your kind true selves and stop feeling a need to edit stories or poems. Stop trying to find one negative, one positive comment in your feedback. Instead visualize the bitem, enjoy same, fathom content with eyes closed like readers who are not rushed revvers. One plain simple suggestion ... from Ms LaRue runs ... write --- ww wr wr w-r- W-R-I-T-E until you drop and take the long hiatus from revving. To those sweethearts out there, this does not mean you are not "supporting" wc, it means you are taking time to write, write, write. Help boost wc to a heavy emphasis on writing. Which, sillies without it we see not a single r/r/r/. And if this aint bad enough. Not only do we hold these truths to be self evident, we may also wish for higher prize pools and longer word counts for fiction contests. Then we may safely enter a world of Lit. Which to my knowledge belongs to all people from all walks of life, from all ages and writing levels. To even think there are different levels of reviewing would require an non-site determination (not only accepted site definitions) from an outside source me: A BOOK or a true reference for a real review. These real revs are on book flaps. Covered in 2004-5- update inside "Reviewing Wisdom 1, 2, 3 GO!" And I aint even mad. Progress. Author beware hints to the surface, come Sunday.To uphold dif levels of revving on site? AND IF YOU DO ... and if you ever do .... hatch open a crap rev from your site email sources try writing back with this hint: ask the revver what book he/ she's reading and what library they found it in ... who the publisher may be, date of copyright. ... WHICH might help you cross the initial moment for a bogus rev with bogus critique. Overall ... the latter might help other authors. So, talk yourself up, and be ready for more feedback. Don't hope for rate changes, the stand behinds are upheld for their opinions. Faulty opinions are revs as well. Sad & true. The system is there and it can be awfully tricky while often rather abused. Not the fault of WC? Can we believe WDC is a separate entity when the community is WC ... well the techno part works great, helps in most case or it doesn't. So you're sitting around watching Grit TV or Link channel and out of the blue you --- are mailed "the confusion rev" --- go: A sez ah, B sez buh etc. Oh they hate that one, find it defensive, unheard of sometimes since you just told someone they need help reading. Yet, perhaps this is true. And not everyone of your revvers has finished the piece. That, babycakes, is called sheer laziness prior to clicking the send rev button. All common sense. Moral of the story --- stop with the picky while saying it is justified. Plus to whom it may concern in the future do consider the much overused "learn & improve" and read up a bit on reading. Next: Ooops: OVERALL COMMENT: DO WHATEVER you deem best if revving large me: often. OVERALL COMMENT: BRING this site to the top --- TTT with great writing for http://www.writing.com. And when you do ... AND WHEN YOU DO ... Paula (TEFF) promises you ... then and only then do you support yourself, your works and all of us fish out here doing the best we damn well strive to perfect and polish, luv. PS: I already know you already knew this ... wink. Damn, 'twas TEFFY who announces last summer she'd stop with the writing advice already and the hownot-to review advice ... but hey ... hope this helps. Paula La Rue on the other hand, a wild gal with an alter ego tie ... couldn't resist the ploy of: there but for the grace of God go you or I ... Yet, still ... for those among us (this community, the Internet also) IF caught in the headlights where TEFF is apt to concur --- I'd don't bother with the mundane. I go to bed at night knowing I write goddem superb. What? Don't you? WHO ???? WHO ???? WHO ???? Who wants to gift Paula La Rue a premmium membership? Anyone out there? |
Aug/27/12 Edit ---} This blog previously --- Sent to ADC --- Hello CLUB!! (Fee to join THE CLUB is 100,000 gp. Our forum is private & filled with serious & casual writers talking the craft. Tons of info there. New members welcome & looking for a CLUB Secretary.) "HELLO CLUB!! Hope everyone is fine, writing, reading, researching and enjoying the month as we plan for Thanksgiving. FOR 2009 ---Yesterday on a credible news show: DEMOCRACY NOW, featured on both Link & Free Speech TV channels, Journalist, Amy Goodman announced a new, REVISED count for hungry US citizens. The tally is staggering for 2009 @ 49 million, including 17 million children. Wow!! Who didn't see this coming as food costs rose steadily for almost two consecutive years. So, if in a position to reach out and donate to community food banks or churches with food kitchens wherever you may reside, let us consider such generosity. Aug edit: After checking US Statistics Bureau in 2010 & 2011 ... at that time there began a no record theme for years post 2009. Eh, hell, guess we're not supposed to be privy to exactly how many go hungry @ night, in our own country these days. Next: One means of counterbalancing such a fate laid with the Food Stamp program. Alas, reportedly, drastically cut in the summer of 2012. Meanwhile, numerous New York City homeless shelters closed due austerity cuts flagrantly imposed on social programs, now sweeping the states. ---------------------------------- Returning to this Nov, 13, 2009 blog ... Talk in Rome this week (Nov/2009) centers on facts which quickly paid billions in bailout funds to bankers, yet bypassed the needy not only here in the states but worldwide. Whenever national issues or international ones spark your fancy ... never forget recording daily happenstance from newsfeeds or your very own neighborhood which often jump starts realism in fiction genre. Nothing new really. Plus boosting concern for fellow mankind. Take that all the way to recording outrageous attacks on gee whiz ... populations. Okay: Lighter note:
closes, clocking in as quite an "AUTHORS DISCUSSION CLUB" success!! CLUB members who entered all did a very fine job. And we now welcome our new members who entered this contest. See forum at "EVERYONE HAS A HALLOWEEN STORY CONTEST" to view complete winner's credentials and to note Honorable Mentions. "CLOSING REMARKS: CLUB REPLAY" Where you see the judge relax. Um, that be me. OH --- teffom@writing.com (TEFF) often using her 2003 pen name of Paula LaRue (81) So don't worry, nobody kidnapped me, I'm right here. Always curious to know where you are so visit the forum and talk us up. Please feel free to dab about the wit we need to come together as a CLUB. llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Aug 27, 2012 ED Note: With TEFF'S CALDRON TIME just around the corner, considering revamping EVERYONE HAS A HALLOWEEN STORY, a former presentation of ADC, AUTHORS DISCUSSION CLUB. |
POINDEXTER VERMONT TALES, for want of a better title, is a standing series with ties to Boston ... with each segment viewable on
Where a sig line banner: ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** displays this serial. So, taking a look at that and working on my WEBRING MENU where new, old and previously unaired short stories are also available for sale via email. Thanks for visiting. Your old pal, TEFF just might use my other pen name for a few weeks. Thus possibly deciding on PaulaLaRue debut here on good old wc-villle. But don't think that will fool any wc judges for daily prompt contests (whom always boot down my entries to the lowest common denominator for years, in fact. So giving those and other official site competition for "creating something" up entirely as in the past. Like long already. Sleep arrives easier that way as well late of a cold, dark & stormy, wind laden night my eyelids remain very sedated via calm nerves without hassle critique, low rates etc nor reading inferior stories appearing as front winners in those contests open to all colors. llllllllllllll SIDEBAR: lllllllllll (Sorry, I judge things too and when I do, I award for the best one after consideration of all submissions from contest entrants, whom I think deserve marked degrees spelling complete honesty.) llllllllllllll End Sidebar llllllllllllllll So cackle, cackle ... on with a vampire look see at two old series, a novella and whoosh ... I'll fly off now. While smells of drying leaves, apples in orchards, pumpkin pies in the oven and all airy intoxication* of Autumn's Cauldron Time is in the wind, of course. And always in the my mind during this special ... TEFF/ LA RUE FESTIVAL, a Fiesta which stands the march of time since 2006. See ya in church, my dears. * Hell, give me decaying leaves any day of the month. YUM MEE! Perfect aroma. Bottle that and you've Essence of Autumn." |
Yuppers .. a few things to take care of this morning ... be back later. |
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